RUMOR: Unannounced Gemini 4 Hydrogen appears in Google Cloud’s price list at $1.50/$7.50 per million tokens
Google hasn’t announced a third Gemini 4 model — but its own billing catalog now lists “Gemini 4 Hydrogen” with full prices, and trackers say the model answers on Vertex AI. Here’s what the listing proves, and what it doesn’t.
- The listing: 30 “Gemini 4 Hydrogen” SKUs under the Gemini API service in Google Cloud’s SKU catalog, all global region, priced in US dollars — verified on cloud.google.com/skus on November 12.
- The prices: standard text input $1.50 per million tokens; output $7.50 per million; cached input $0.075; batch input $0.75; batch output $3.75; priority input $2.70.
- The context: Gemini 4 Argon was announced September 30; Carbon went generally available November 10 at $2/$10 per million through November 30, rising to $4/$20 on December 1. Hydrogen at $1.50/$7.50 would undercut Carbon’s December price by 62.5% and match Gemini 3.8 Flash’s list price.
- The unconfirmed part: a tracker account says calling gemini-4-hydrogen on Vertex AI returns a working model that identifies itself as “Gemini 4 Hydrogen” — a claim that has not been independently reproduced. Google’s Gemini API models and pricing pages still list no Hydrogen entry.
- The history: the Hydrogen codename has circulated since late October, tied to blind Arena appearances under the label gemini-3.8-flash and to a one-word “Gemini” post from Google AI Studio lead Logan Kilpatrick.
Google has not announced a third Gemini 4 model. Its billing catalog appears to have done the announcing for it. On November 12, the name “Gemini 4 Hydrogen” showed up in Google Cloud’s public SKU list — 30 line items, with full per-token prices — and within hours the leak-tracking corners of X and Reddit were treating it as the worst-kept secret in AI. Google has said nothing. That silence is the whole story: everything that follows is rumor, and the honest version of it is a careful split between what Google’s own pages now show and what nobody has proven.
The verified part is short, and it is the part that matters. A check of Google Cloud’s SKU catalog on November 12 returns 30 SKUs for “Gemini 4 Hydrogen” under the Gemini API service, all in the global region and priced in US dollars. The standard text rates are $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens. The same $1.50 applies to audio and image input; cached input is listed at $0.075, batch input at $0.75, batch output at $3.75, and priority input at $2.70 per million tokens.
What the price list actually shows#
A billing entry is not a launch. It is, however, a specific kind of evidence: SKUs are how Google charges developers, and they do not usually appear for products that do not exist. The Gemini 4 family has a recent precedent — Carbon’s own billing SKUs surfaced in the catalog before its public release. And the prices themselves tell a story: $1.50/$7.50 is exactly the list price of Gemini 3.8 Flash from January 1, 2027, and it undercuts Carbon’s December pricing ($4 input / $20 output) by 62.5%. If Hydrogen is real, it is priced to be the cheap, fast one.
| Rate (per 1M tokens) | Gemini 4 Hydrogen | Gemini 4 Carbon (from Dec 1) |
|---|---|---|
| Standard input (text) | $1.50 | $4.00 |
| Standard output (text) | $7.50 | $20.00 |
| Cached input | $0.075 | — |
| Batch input / output | $0.75 / $3.75 | — |
| Priority input | $2.70 | — |
The table is the whole case for taking the listing seriously: it is detailed, internally consistent, and priced exactly where a Flash-tier model should sit. What it cannot do is confirm the model behind the prices.
The claims that still need proof#
The loudest claim of the day comes from a model-tracking account on X, which reported on November 12 that calling gemini-4-hydrogen on Vertex AI’s global endpoint returned a working model that identified itself as “Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a large language model built by Google.” The post drew about 58,000 views. It has not been independently reproduced — the news aggregator that first relayed it says it tried and could not — and Google’s own Gemini API models and pricing pages still carry no Hydrogen entry at all. Treat the endpoint claim as unconfirmed, not as a launch.
A second sighting arrived on Reddit the same day: a crosspost to r/singularity showed a screenshot of Google’s Antigravity app with “Gemini 4 Hydrogen High New” sitting in the model picker, selected, alongside “Gemini 4 Argon Medium New” and a greyed-out “Gemini 4 Carbon Unavailable.” The poster, who shared the screenshot at 12:19 p.m. ET, added only that it “works really fast” and that there was no further information to share. A screenshot of a picker is easy to fake and proves nothing on its own — but it is now the second independent surface where the name has appeared in a day, after the billing catalog.
The rest of the circulating detail is thinner still: testers say Hydrogen has been appearing in blind LMArena matchups since early November under the label gemini-3.8-flash, with reported speeds of 300 to 500 tokens per second and demos of 3D scenes finished in minutes. None of that has a benchmark, a model card, or a Google source behind it.
Why everyone thinks it’s the Flash tier#
The Hydrogen name has been circulating since late October, when leak-tracking accounts first tied it to a Flash-tier Gemini 4 model in internal testing. The naming fits the pattern Google established this autumn: Argon, announced September 30, and Carbon, announced October 28 and generally available November 10. A third element name, priced well below both, slots neatly into the Flash role Google has always used for its cheaper, lower-latency tier. Business Insider reported on November 11 that Google staff are testing a “fast and efficient” model called Hydrogen, and the speculation caught fire the same day Google AI Studio lead Logan Kilpatrick posted a single word — “Gemini” — to X.
There is also a second codename in the mix: Krypton, described by trackers as a checkpoint above Carbon. It has even less behind it than Hydrogen — no billing entry, no picker screenshot, no endpoint claim — and it is worth mentioning only so that the two names do not get confused.
What to watch#
Three things would turn this from rumor into news, in order of how much they would prove. First, a Hydrogen entry on Google’s Gemini API models or pricing page — the billing catalog lists prices, but the developer surfaces are where a model actually becomes callable. Second, an official announcement or model card, which would settle the Flash-tier question and supply the missing numbers: context window, benchmarks, and a release date. Third, independent reproduction of the Vertex AI claim by anyone other than the account that first made it.
Until one of those happens, the correct summary is narrow: an unannounced model name with a full price list is sitting in Google’s own billing catalog, and the company has not commented. That is unusual enough to report — and thin enough that it should stay labeled rumor until Google says otherwise.
Sources: Google Cloud SKU catalog — Gemini 4 Hydrogen (verified Nov. 12, 2026); r/singularity — New Gemini 4 model (Nov. 12, 2026, 12:19 p.m. ET); AICoder — Gemini 4 Hydrogen X debate (Nov. 12, 2026); OfficeChai — Google Preparing To Release A Flash Model Named Gemini 4 Hydrogen, X Users Say; kie.ai — What Is Gemini 4 Hydrogen?; OrcaRouter — Gemini 4 Release Date: Carbon Is Live; Krypton Leak Graded. Prior coverage: Gemini 4 Carbon is now available to everyone — and Google’s /swarm turns one prompt into a team of agents; Google DeepMind launches Gemini 4 Carbon: its strongest model yet, built for cyber defense — but almost nobody can use it yet.